Extension of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales to Include the Big Five Dimensions of Personality
Trapnell, P.D, and Wiggins, J.S.
Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 59 (4) October 1990, pp. 781-790.
Abstract
Recent recognition that the dominance and nurturance dimensions of the interpersonal circumplex correspond closely to the surgency/extraversion and agreeableness dimensions of the five-factor model of personality provides an occasion for the closer integration of these two traditions. We describe the procedures whereby we extended our adjectival measure of the circumplex Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R) to include the additional Big Five dimensions of conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The resultant five-scale instrument (IASR-B5) was found to have excellent structure on the item level, internally consistent scales, and promising convergent and discriminant properties when compared with the NEO Personality Inventory and the Hogan Personality Inventory. The unique feature of the IASR-B5 is that it provides a highly efficient instrument for combined circumplex and five-factor assessment. We provide an example of such combined assessment.
The current decade in personality psychology has been characterized by renewed interest in two structural models that have been well-established for almost 40 years: the five-factor model of personality and the circumplex model of interpersonal behavior. The five orthogonal factors that have been found within the former tradition are listed in
Five-factor model of personality and circumplex model of interpersonal behavior.
Figure 1. These dimensions originated in the work of Cattell (1946), were developed by Tupes and Christal (1961), and were refined by Norman (1963). Recent extensions of this line of investigation may be found in the work of McCrae and Costa (1985a), Digman and Inouye (1986), Hogan (1983), and Peabody and Goldberg (1989).
As can also be seen in Figure 1, the circumplex model of interpersonal behavior is composed of eight interpersonal variables (e. g. , assured-dominant, arrogant-calculating) that are arranged in a circular ordering around the underlying coordinates of dominance and nurturance. These variables are identified by code letters (e. g. , PA, BC), and they are each assumed to represent a different "blend" of the two underlying coordinates. Thus, for example, arrogant-calculating behavior (BC) is a blend of dominance and hostility; cold-hearted behavior (DE) is a pure measure of hostility; and aloof-introverted behavior (FG) is a blend of submissiveness and hostility. This model had its origins in the work of Freedman, Leary, Ossorio, and Coffey (1951), was refined by Leary (1957), and was extended by investigators such as Lorr and McNair (1965). Recent substantive refinements of the circumplex model may be found in the work of Benjamin (1974), Kiesler (1983), and Wiggins (1979).
The five-factor and circumplex models of personality were developed in different research contexts and have tended to be used by different groups of investigators. The five-factor model was developed in the factor-analytic tradition of Cattell and Eysenck and has been implemented mainly by psychometricians and personality psychologists working within that tradition. The circumplex model was developed in a clinical context, within an explicit neo-Freudian framework, and its applications have mainly focused on clinical problems (Wiggins, 1982), although not exclusively so (Wiggins, 1980).
Although the five-factor and circumplex models originated in different research traditions, were directed toward different substantive issues, and were guided by different structural models, they should be regarded as complementary rather than competing models of personality. As McCrae and Costa (1989b) noted: "The five-factor model provides a larger framework in which to orient and interpret the circumplex, and the interpersonal circle provides a useful elaboration about aspects of two of the five factors" (p. 593). The two factors to which McCrae and Costa refer are surgency/extraversion and agreeableness, which they found to correspond to the circumplex coordinates of dominance and nurturance, respectively.
The present article describes the development of a brief (124-item) adjectival rating form that is meant to provide markers of the interpersonal circumplex coordinates of dominance and nurturance, as well as global markers of the remaining dimensions of the five-factor model: neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. An efficient shortform version of the circumplex dimensions is provided by the Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R; Wiggins, Trapnell, & Phillips, 1988), which has been shown to possess the geometric and substantive properties required for interpersonal assessment (Wiggins, Phillips, & Trapnell, 1989). The development of 20-item measures of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience allowed us to extend the IAS-R to include markers of both circumplex and five-factor models of personality within a single instrument—the IASR-B5.
Method
Source of Items
Goldberg's (1977) pool of 1,710 trait-descriptive adjectives was derived from the exhaustive dictionary studies of Allport and Odbert (1936) and Norman (1967), and it has served as a common source for the development of a number of contemporary taxonomies and special scales (John, Angleitner, & Ostendorf, 1988). In the present study we made use of Goldberg's (1977) data set that includes ratings of self-applicability of each of the 1,710 adjectives by 187 university undergraduates. As will be described in the sections that follow, items relating to neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience were selected from this data set on the basis of previous studies of the five-factor model, and preliminary clusters of these three dimensions were identified on the basis of factorial homogeneity within the sample of 187 subjects. These three clusters of items were supplemented by items not included in the 1,710-adjective list and administered to two new samples of 581 and 360 subjects. The three final 20-item balanced scales of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, together with previously developed measures of dominance and nurturance from IAS-R (Wiggins et al. , 1988), constitute the final version of the IASR-B5.
Preliminary Neuroticism Cluster
On the basis of previous factor-analytic studies that used trait adjectives (Goldberg, 1985; McCrae & Costa, 1985a) and the results of studies reviewed by Digman and Takemoto-Chock (1981), 30 adjectives were identified in the 1,710-adjective list that were identical to or close synonyms of adjectives previously found to have high factor loadings on neuroticism. When the intercorrelations among these 30 adjectives were subjected to a principal-components analysis in Goldberg's sample of 187 subjects, the highest loading adjectives on the first principal component (e. g. , tense, nervous, worrying, and relaxed) were highly similar to those found in previous studies and clearly reflected the anxiety facet of this dimension. The pool of 10 items that loaded the neuroticism component most highly was augmented by negations (e. g. , unanxious and unnervous) in order to balance keying direction, and by items, not among the 10 most highly loading, that had fared well in the previous work of others (e. g. , self-conscious and stable). The structural characteristics of this balanced set of 20 neuroticism items were investigated in our own combined sample of 941 subjects.
Preliminary Conscientiousness Cluster
On the basis of the studies cited earlier, 25 adjectives were identified in the 1,710-adjective list that were identical to or close synonyms of adjectives previously found to have high factor loadings on conscientiousness. Principal-components analysis of the intercorrelations among these 25 adjectives in the sample of 187 subjects revealed a first component, similar to those found in previous studies, that emphasized organization or order (e. g. , organized, orderly, efficient, and thorough). The pool of 10 items that loaded the conscientiousness component most highly was augmented by negations (e. g. , unorderly and unsystematic) and by items that had high loadings on this factor in previous studies (e. g. , neat and impractical). This set of items was also evaluated in the combined sample of 941 subjects.
Preliminary Openness Cluster
The fifth factor of the Big Five model appears to be broader in scope and looser in structure than the other four factors. This factor has been variously interpreted as inquiring intellect (Fiske, 1949), culture (Tupes & Christal, 1961), intellect (Digman & Takemoto-Chock, 1981; Peabody & Goldberg, 1989), intellectance (Hogan, 1983), and openness to experience (McCrae & Costa, 1985b). We agree with McCrae and Costa's (1985b) observation that the essence of this factor is not fully captured by the relatively narrow categories of intellect or culture and, consequently, we cast a somewhat broader net around this construct by assembling items that were representative of the several interpretations that have been made of the content of this factor.
The sets of adjectives marking the fifth factor provided by Goldberg (1985) and by McCrae and Costa (1985a) provide a sampling of the several conceptions of this factor that have been suggested by previous investigators in this field. On a rational basis, we classified the 45 nonoverlapping items from these two sets into eight categories: intellect, culture, creativity, curiosity, reflectiveness, conventionality, openmindedness, and adventurousness. The positively phrased adjectives from these categories that could be located within Goldberg's 1,710-item pool were then augmented by positively phrased synonyms within that same pool. This procedure resulted in a set of 44 items in which each of the eight preliminary categories were represented by from 2 to 5 items.
Intercorrelations among the 44 items just described were obtained in Goldberg's sample of 187 subjects. Principal components were extracted and rotated to a direct oblimin criterion (Jennrich & Sampson, 1966) in an attempt to identify (a) distinct factors that corresponded to preliminary rational categories and (b) factors that were moderately correlated with other factors in the solution. Factors corresponding to rational categories were sought in order to provide a final scale that would be representative of existing conceptions of the fifth factor. Correlated factors were considered to be desirable in the construction of a relatively narrow-band marker of the fifth factor.
When six obliquely rotated factors were considered, the three items from the adventurous category formed a distinct factor, but one that was not correlated with the remaining five factors; hence, these items were discarded. When the six factors extracted from the intercorrelations among the remaining 41 items were considered, items from the open-mindedness category were distributed among several factors, and an apparent culture factor was uncorrelated with the other factors in the solution. These findings prompted the formation of five facet scales in which the three to five items with the highest loadings on a given factor were chosen to mark the facets of intellect, creativity, curiosity, reflectiveness, and unconventionality.
The five facet scales, based on the preceding factor analyses, were correlated with each of the 1,710 items in Goldberg's sample of 187 subjects. Those items correlating most highly with and most evenly across the five facet scales were selected1 for a final principal-components analysis, and a balanced set of 32 items was assembled for the preliminary IASR-B5 on the basis of loadings on the first principal component. Twenty of these 32 items were selected for the final openness scale on the basis of internal consistency criteria in the sample of 581 subjects and on theoretical considerations: 3 items (conventional, individualistic, and artistic) were selected, despite having somewhat lower item-total correlations than several items not selected (unquestioning, intellectual, and intuitive), in order to maintain a sufficiently broad bandwidth of content in the final scale. The structural characteristics of this final balanced set of 20 openness adjectives were then evaluated in the combined sample of 941 subjects.
Structural Evaluation of the IASR-B5
We administered the preliminary IASR-B5 along with a battery of personality questionnaires as part of a larger study of personality structure. The inclusion of the NEO Personality Inventory and the Hogan Personality Inventory in the assessment battery allowed us to evaluate the external validity of the IASR-B5 as a measure of the fivefactor model. The size of this sample allowed us to obtain preliminary normative data on the new conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness domain scales and to examine the factor structure of the IASR-B5 items. For ease in interpreting this structure, we decided to include only a subset of the 64 circumplex-structured IAS-R items so as to represent Factors 1 and 2 here in simple structure fashion. We selected items from the assured-dominant (PA) and unassured-submissive (HI) octant scales, located at 90° and 270° on the circumplex, to mark Factor 1 (DOM). We selected items from the warm-agreeable (LM) and cold-hearted (DE) octant scales, located at 0° and 180° on the circumplex and thus orthogonal to the PA and HI items, to mark Factor 2 (LOV).
Subjects
The subjects were 941 (517 women and 424 men) University of British Columbia undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology courses. Subjects were recruited by telephone and by sign-up sheets posted in the psychology department. The first sample, consisting of 581 subjects, was recruited from September 1987 to April 1988. The second sample, consisting of 360 subjects, was recruited from September 1988 to December 1988. Subjects ranged in age from 16 to 44, with a median age of 19. 2 in the combined sample. Participation was on a voluntary basis in exchange for course credit. Subjects were tested in small groups in our laboratory, during two 1-hr sessions separated by approximately 1 week, by a rotating team of four graduate students.
Instruments
Preliminary IASR-B5.
The preliminary adjective clusters marking the Big Five factors of conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness, together with the 64 adjectives of the IAS-R (Wiggins et al. , 1988), were assembled into a booklet in random order. The response format chosen was identical to that of the IAS-R: Subjects were asked to rate the self-descriptive accuracy of each single adjective (e. g. , dominant) on an 8-point Likert scale ranging from extremely inaccurate to extremely accurate. The IASR-B5 was the first measure administered to all subjects in the first of their two assessment sessions.
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985).
The NEO-PI is a 181-item questionnaire designed to provide self- and other-report measures of the five-factor model. Subjects rate each item (e. g. , "I like to follow a strict routine in my work") on a 5-point Likert scale. The instrument provides global domain scores for the orthogonal dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. In addition, six facet scales may be scored for a more fine-grained analysis of each of the first three domains (neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience).
Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI; Hogan, 1986).
The HPI is a 310-item questionnaire designed to operationalize a six-factor variant of the five-factor model. Subjects indicate their agreement or disagreement with each statement by circling either T (true) or F (false). The HPI provides global assessment of six personality dimensions considered to possess "broad, general importance for personal and social effectiveness" (Hogan, 1986, p. 5). Four of these global scales—likability, prudence, adjustment, and intellectance—correspond to Factors 2-5 of the five-factor model. The remaining two global scales, ambition and sociability, provide a two-dimensional representation of Factor 1 of the five-factor model. In addition, each of the global scales may be represented by a number of small (3 to 6 items each) subscales called "homogeneous item clusters" (HICs), which are designed to tap distinct facets or aspects of each of the six factors.
Results
All 92 items loaded most highly on their
expected factors, with only 2 items loading greater than. 33 on
additional factors. These two surgency/extraversion items,
self-confident and self-assured, had substantial
secondary loadings on neuroticism, a result consistent with previous
research showing scales and scale items measuring social confidence
or social anxiety to correlate about equally highly with
extraversion and neuroticism (e. g. , Briggs,
1988). The 60 items selected to univocally mark the
conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness factors appear to do so
without exception. Given the impressive psychometric, geometric, and
diagnostic properties of the IAS-R octant scales (Wiggins
et al. , 1988, 1989),
Table
1 provides strong support for the structural validity of the
IASR-B5.
In the large sample reported here, sex
differences in scale means were statistically significant p
< . 01) for all five scales, although for DOM, conscientiousness
(CONSC), and openness (OPEN) this difference amounted to less than .
19 standard deviations. Differences for the remaining two scales are
more substantial, with women scoring . 29 and . 88 standard
deviations higher than men on neuroticism (NEUR) and LOV,
respectively. The magnitude and direction of the sex differences on
these latter two scales are consistent with those commonly found in
self-reports for Factor 2 and 4 traits. Sex differences exceeding .
4 standard deviations have, for example, been reported for the
following measures of Factor 4: the NEO-PI Neuroticism scale (Costa
& McCrae, 1985), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
Neuroticism scale (Eysenck
& Eysenck, 1975), the HPI Adjustment scale (Hogan,
1986), and the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) Anxiety scale
(Jackson,
1976). Sex differences greater than . 5 standard deviations are
commonly reported for Factor 2 measures, including the Personality
Research Form Nurturance scale (Jackson,
1984), the JPI Interpersonal Affect scale (Jackson,
1976), the Mehrabian and Epstein Empathy scale (Eisenburg
& Lennon, 1983), and the NEO-PI Agreeableness scale (Costa
& McCrae, 1985). Why Factor 2 and 4 traits show consistent sex
differences is not yet well-understood. Sex differences in Factor 4
scales may be a result of sex differences in affectivity (positive
and negative affect) rather than an indication of differential
adjustment between men and women (Woods,
Rhodes, & Whelan, 1989). However, sex differences tend to be
larger for negative than for positive affectivity (Woods
et al. , 1989). Because these differences are found in spouse
ratings as well as self-reports, they may not be entirely
attributable to sex bias in the willingness to report negative
affect (Costa
& McCrae, 1985). Sex differences on Factor 2 scales may be
largely due to sex-role-related self-presentation, and may not
reflect sex differences in empathic responsiveness or nurturant,
altruistic, or agreeable behavior (Eisenberg
& Lennon, 1983; Graziano
& Eisenberg, in press). Alpha coefficients of internal consistency
for the IASR-B5 domain scales are presented in the rightmost column
of Table
2. Values for DOM and LOV are composites based on alpha
coefficients of their constituent IAS-R octant scales (Horst,
1968, p. 280). These values are substantial, as would be
expected from the octant scale reliabilities, which range from . 77
(unassuming-ingenuous [JK]) to . 88 (LM) in this sample. The three
new scales, CONSC, NEUR, and OPEN, show moderately high levels of
internal consistency, as expected for factorderived scales,
indicating that the items within each scale are measuring a similar
construct. Table
3 presents validity coefficients providing evidence on the
adequacy of the IASR-B5 as a set of marker scales for the
five-factor model. Correlations between the IASR-B5 markers and the
five domain scales of the NEO-PI are presented in the top half of Table
3. IASR-B5 correlations with the six primary scales of the HPI
are presented in the bottom half. Convergent validities (shown in
italics) compare favorably with NEO-PI and HPI validities reported
for other adjectival markers of these factors (e. g. , Goldberg,
1990; McCrae
& Costa, 1989a). NEO-PI validities for DOM, CONSC, and NEUR,
in particular, are quite high, approaching the upper limit of the
reliabilities of each pair of scales, whereas those for LOV and OPEN
are somewhat lower, a pattern that replicates that reported by Goldberg
(1990) for a set of similar adjectives. HPI convergent validities are generally lower
than those for the NEO-PI, a finding that also parallels that for
Goldberg's adjective scales. Without exception, however, the highest
correlations for each IASR-B5 scale are with the expected HPI
primary scale. Because the HPI represents Factor 1 of the
five-factor model with two scales, Ambition and Sociability, there
are two possible convergent correlations for IASR-B5 DOM. As shown
in Table
3, DOM correlates moderately with both these scales, and, as
expected, correlates more highly with Ambition than Sociability,
reflecting the greater weight assigned the dominance-submissiveness
IAS-R vector than the extraversion-introversion vector in the
calculation of the DOM factor score. Divergent correlations are all relatively
low, the highest being that between DOM and the two Factor 4 scales,
Neuroticism (−. 35) and Adjustment (. 42). Only three other
divergent correlations are notable: IASR-B5 Openness and HPI
Ambition (. 39), IASR-B5 LOV and NEO-PI Openness (. 29), and IASR-B5
LOV and NEO-PI Extraversion (. 31). Given the large sample size on
which these values are based, and the fact that the dimensions of
the five-factor model are generally viewed as orthogonal to one
another, each of these divergent or "cross-factor" correlations
requires some comment. The moderate correlation between the two
IAS-R dominance scales (DOM and dom) and the Factor 4 scales
(Neuroticism and Adjustment) may be due primarily to their shared
association with social confidence and social anxiety. Support for
this interpretation is provided by the loadings of the PA items
self-confident and self-assured on both
neuroticism and surgency/extraversion (see Table
1), and by the fact that the abbreviated dom scale, which
consists only of the PA and HI items, shows a stronger relation with
the neuroticism measures than does the much longer IASR-B5 DOM
factor score: Of the six IAS-R octant scales that enter into the DOM
factor score, only PA and HI contain adjectives related to social
confidence and shyness (e. g. , self-confident, self-assured, shy,
bashful, and meek), traits that, as noted above, correlate
moderately with both neuroticism and extraversion. Additional
evidence for this interpretation is the fact that DOM correlates
more highly with HPI Adjustment than with NEO-PI Neuroticism: The
HPI measure of Factor 4 explicitly taps self-confidence and social
anxiety (the three-item Self-Confidence and six-item No Social
Anxiety HICs), whereas the NEO-PI measure of Factor 4 does not.
Descriptively, then, the relation between IASR-B5 DOM and
neuroticism/adjustment may be mediated by their shared variance with
shyness and confidence. Conceptual explanations of the link between
"surgent" Factor 1 traits (i. e. , dominance and assertiveness) and
low negative affect are beyond the scope of the present discussion.
The moderate association between IASR-B5
Openness and HPI Ambition may be primarily accounted for by the
former's relation to the Ideas HIC in the Ambition scale. This
subscale was originally scored for intellectance but was found to
load more highly on the ambition factor (a factor originally labeled
"surgency"; Hogan,
1983). In a later HPI factor analysis, the Ideas HIC loaded
equally highly on both of these factors (Hogan,
1986). In the present sample, deleting this factorially complex
HIC from the Ambition total score had the effect of lowering the
correlation between IASR-B5 Openness and Ambition from . 39 to . 28.
The latter value more closely resembles the correlation reported
between NEO-PI Openness and Extraversion (McCrae
& Costa, 1989a, p. 119). Although a meaningful relation
between openness and surgency/extraversion does seem likely
(confidence, emotional responsiveness, and sensation seeking are
possible mediators of this relation), IASR-B5 Openness appears not
to be seriously confounded with Factor 1 variance. The correlation between IASR-B5 LOV and
NEO-PI Openness is accounted for primarily by two facets of the
latter scale, Openness to Feelings and Openness to Aesthetics. The
Feelings facet assesses sensitivity to and liking for emotional
experiences and feelings, traits that might be expected to correlate
with IASR-B5 LOV. This facet scale usually loads as highly on an
extraversion as on an openness factor in structural analyses of the
NEO-PI (McCrae
& Costa, 1989a). As discussed below, extraversion is one of
the IAS-R octants receiving a positive weight in the calculation of
the LOV factor score. The NEO-PI Aesthetics facet assesses
receptiveness and sensitivity to aesthetic experiences such as those
provided by poetry, music, and art. The positive correlation of this
facet with IASR-B5 LOV is consistent with structural research
findings established for over three decades in another
domain—vocational interests. In Holland's well-known "hexagonal"
model of vocational personality types, Artistic and Social
vocational types occupy adjacent positions, indicating a high degree
of relation (Holland,
1985). In Holland's system, Artistic types are defined by
occupations such as poet and musician and by traits such as
imaginative, emotional, and sensitive. Social types are defined by
occupations such as social worker and marriage counselor and by
traits such as empathic, kind, and helpful. The latter cluster of
interests and traits corresponds unmistakably to Factor 2 of the
five-factor model—or at least to the IASR-B5's representation of
that factor. The correlation between Extraversion and
IASR-B5 LOV may be viewed as a product of "rotational" differences
between interpersonal (e. g. , dominance and nurturance) and
factor-analytic (e. g. , extraversion and agreeableness) conceptions
of the trait space corresponding to Factors 1 and 2. From an
interpersonal perspective, extraversion is viewed as a mixture of
nurturance and dominance (i. e. , "warm assertiveness"), and the
extraversion octant (NO) of IAS-R is weighted positively in the
calculation of both the DOM and LOV factor scores. From the
factor-analytic perspective, represented by the NEO-PI, extraversion
is a higher order dimension encompassing both dominant (e. g. ,
assertive) and nurturant (e. g. , warm) aspects; NEO-PI scales
measuring assertiveness and warmth—traits viewed as orthogonal from
an interpersonal perspective—are combined in the calculation of the
extraversion domain score. A moderate correlation between IASR-B5
LOV and NEO-PI Extraversion is therefore expected given the
inclusion of extraversion in the conception and measurement of LOV,
and of warmth in the conception and measurement of extraversion.
Which of these two conceptions of gregarious/extraverted behavior is
the more heuristic one is, of course, a key issue in the integration
of the five-factor and interpersonal models of personality. The
point here is that the relation between IASR-B5 LOV and NEO-PI
Extraversion is best understood in the context of the broader
"rotational" issue distinguishing factor-analytic and interpersonal
conceptions of what appears to be a common, two-dimensional trait
space (for an extended discussion of this rotational issue, see McCrae
& Costa, 1989a, and Graziano
& Eisenberg, in press). HPI convergent validities for IASR-B5
Openness and Conscientiousness are fairly low, suggesting some
divergence in content between HPI and IASR-B5 markers of Factors 3
and 5 of the five-factor model. However, because the HPI Prudence
and Intellectance scales have been shown to be factorially complex
(Hogan,
1983, 1986),
one explanation for the lower Factor 3 and 5 correlations might be
that IASR-B5 Conscientiousness and Openness correlate only with one
of the subfactors within the Prudence and Intellectance scales,
respectively. To test this possibility, we extracted two
Prudence component scores from the intercorrelations among the nine
Prudence HICs, extracted two Intellectance component scores from
intercorrelations among the eight Intellectance HICs, and correlated
these two pairs of component scores with conscientiousness and
openness scales from the IASR-B5 and the NEO-PI. The decision to
extract two components in each case was based on descriptions of
these scales provided in the HPI manual (Hogan,
1986) and on the results of factor analyses reported there and
by Hogan
(1983). Component scores were computed using the regression
method, following varimax rotation.
From Table
4 it is apparent that only one of the two subfactors within the
HPI markers of Factors 3 and 5 of the five-factor model shows a
substantial association with the corresponding IASR-B5 markers of
those factors. Furthermore, this pattern is replicated exactly when
NEO-PI questionnaire measures of conscientiousness and openness are
substituted for IASR-B5's adjectival ones. Only the second of the
two Prudence factors correlated substantially with
conscientiousness. This factor was defined by three HICs—Mastery,
Appearance, and Perfect—which reflect the proactive (e. g. , "I
strive for perfection in everything I do") and inhibitive (e. g. ,
"I am careful about my appearance") aspects of conscientiousness
described by McCrae
and Costa (1987). The first Prudence factor was essentially
unrelated to the two conscientiousness scales and was defined by
five HICs—Experience-Seeking (reversed), Impulse Control,
Thrill-Seeking (reversed), Not Spontaneous, and Planfulness—clearly
interpretable as an excitement-seeking factor, scored in reverse. Hogan
(1986) has labeled this first Prudence factor "openness versus
caution," and its moderate negative correlations with the two
Openness scales, particularly NEO-PI Openness (see Table
4), would appear to support that interpretation. In the present
sample, however, this Prudence factor also correlated rather highly
(−. 58) with NEO-PI Excitement-Seeking, which, under the NEO-PI
conception of the five-factor model, is considered to be a facet of
extraversion. Whether the traits of excitement-seeking, risk-taking,
or variety-seeking are more usefully construed as subsets of
extraversion, conscientiousness, or openness, respectively, or as
comprising a separate domain of sensation-seeking traits having
interpersonal, characterological, and cognitive aspects would seem
to be an important taxonomic issue for the five-factor model. As in the case of the Prudence scale, only
the second of the two Intellectance factors shows convergence with
the two measures of Openness. This factor was defined by three
HICs—Cultural Taste, Curiosity, and Reading—that appear to tap
aesthetic, epistemic, and literary aspects of intellectuality,
respectively. The first Intellectance factor was defined by five
HICs—Math Ability, Intellectual Games, Science Ability, Good Memory,
and School Success—that clearly suggest (self-rated) scholastic
ability. This factor is essentially uncorrelated with openness,
supporting the distinctiveness of "openness" and "intelligence"
conceptions of Factor 5 argued by McCrae
and Costa (1985a, 1985b).
Although the HPI represents Factor 5 with HICs covering both of
these conceptions, the low degree of relation between intellect and
openness raises the question of whether it is advisable to compute a
summary Intellectance score across these two HIC clusters (see Carver,
1989). The existence of two orthogonal dimensions laying claim
to the Factor 5 label also raises the conceptual issue of which is
the "real" Factor 5, or, more appropriately, of how the five-factor
model might accommodate dimensions of openness and intellect that
are orthogonal to one another (for discussion of this issue, see Digman
& Inouye, 1986; McCrae
& Costa, 1985b; and Peabody
& Goldberg, 1989). From Tables
3 and 4,
however, it is clear which of these two conceptions of Factor 5 is
represented in the IASR-B5—Openness. The interpersonal circumplex and the
five-factor model of personality originated in different research
traditions and were developed in relative isolation from each other.
The recent recognition that the interpersonal dimensions of
dominance and nurturance correspond closely to the Big Five factors
of surgency/extraversion and agreeableness provides an occasion for
closer integration of the two traditions. As a first step in this
direction, we extended our adjectival measure of the interpersonal
circumplex (IAS-R) to include the additional Big Five dimensions of
conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The
resultant five-scale instrument (the IASR-B5) was found to have an
excellent structure on the item level, internally consistent scales,
and promising convergent and discriminant properties when compared
with the NEO-PI and the HPI. Because a complete version of the IAS-R is
contained within the IASR-B5, the advantages of the former
instrument are retained. Namely, the IAS-R is an instrument that:
(a) provides a highly efficient measure of eight interpersonal
dimensions of central importance to personality and social
psychology (Wiggins
& Broughton, 1985); (b) is ideally suited for repeated
testings, mass screening, and exploratory investigations (Wiggins
et al. , 1988); and (c) may be used for classification of
persons into typological categories (Wiggins
et al. , 1989). The convergent and discriminant validities
obtained between IASR-B5 scales and comparable domain scales from
the NEO-PI and the HPI suggest that the adjectival measure is
well-suited for exploratory research in relatively unchartered
domains for which specific hypotheses regarding individual
differences variables are lacking. In such situations, significant
correlations with one or more of the global IASR-B5 dimensions would
provide the basis for designing more focused studies using scales
and subscales from the NEO-PI or the HPI. Although the IASR-B5 has
no obvious advantage over the Goldberg
(1990) adjectival scales or variants thereof (e. g. , McCrae
& Costa, 1985a) in providing an efficient global measure of
the Big Five, the unique feature of the IASR-B5 is that it provides
a highly efficient instrument for combined five-factor and
interpersonal circumplex assessment. The advantages of combined circumplex and
five-factor assessment may be illustrated with data from a recent
study by Wiggins
and Pincus (1989) in which the conceptions of personality
disorders inherent in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI) Personality Disorder scales (Morey,
Waugh, & Blashfield, 1985) were evaluated with reference to
the IASR-B5. In order to evaluate the discriminant validity of
avoidant, schizoid, and antisocial personality disorder scales, the
DOM and LOV scores of high-scoring subjects on each of these three
scales were projected onto the interpersonal circumplex. As can be
seen from the top of
IASR-B5 profiles of high-scoring subjects on
each of three Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Personality Disorder scales: avoidant
nnn Figure 2, the three groups of subjects are
discriminated in accord with theoretical expectations. Avoidant and
schizoid subjects (who are typically difficult to discriminate) fall
on the vectors of unassured-submissive and aloof-introverted,
respectively. Antisocial subjects fall on the cold-hearted vector
and are clearly differentiated from the other two groups. Although standard circumplex analyses would
end at this point, the IASR-B5 provides additional information from
the remaining three factors of the five-factor model. As can be seen
from the bar graphs of Figure
2, neuroticism is the feature that most clearly distinguishes
avoidant from schizoid subjects. Avoidant subjects are somewhat less
conscientious than schizoid subjects, and, as expected, antisocial
subjects are quite low on this dimension. A final distinguishing
feature of avoidant subjects is that they are closed to experience
in comparison with schizoid and antisocial groups. These data are
provided for illustrative purposes only, and a thorough examination
of the substantive issues involved would require the richer
information provided by the facets of the NEO-PI and the HICs of the
HPI. The point we wish to make is that a great deal of preliminary
information can often be obtained from administration of the 124
adjectives of the IASR-B5. 1 Several items (e. g. , resourceful and
knowledgeable) met these empirical criteria but were not retained
for the final component analysis. Peabody and Goldberg (1989)
have made a distinction between two types of items marking Factor 5:
those representing "expressive intelligence" (e. g. , imaginative
and curious) and those representing "controlled intelligence" (e. g.
, intelligent and knowledgeable). They suggest that "openness to
experience" (McCrae & Costa, 1985b)
corresponds primarily to the former type. We decided to minimize the
selection of controlled intelligence adjectives because of their
tendency to have moderate to high loadings on a factor other than
openness/intellect in some factor studies (see McCrae & Costa,
1985a,
1987).
2 A packet containing sample protocols and
complete scoring instructions for all IASR-B5 scales, including the
eight circumplex scales, their DOM and LOV factor scores, and the
CONSC, NEUR, and OPEN global scales is available upon request from
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Prudence
and Intellectance Factors and IASR-B5
Discussion
Footnotes
References: